


Danny Phantom: Ghost of a Boy

by Dramono



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amity Park has a messed up history, Dead Danny Fenton, Gen, Ghosts, Mystery, Occult sciences, Reimagined Ghost-Zone, Reimagined Ghosts, Reimagined powers, Responsible Fentons, Sort Of, ghost story, reinterpritation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dramono/pseuds/Dramono
Summary: What if the ghost zone was a different place? What if the accident was something else? What if the obvious isn't always the truth?Sam Manson just lost her best friend. At least she thinks so. He's nowhere to be found, his parents has hidden away, and his sister won't tell her what is going on, but come on. She's smart enough to put two and two together.At the same time, strange people has begun to appear in Amity Park. People who talks stiffly. Who moves with little to no regard for their surroundings. Who lives by strange standards and principles. Who sees thing no one else can see, and sometimes disappear with seemingly no traces left behind. No trace that is, but to a desperate boy scrambling forward on a fools quest.Hurry along, little Phantom. The clocks are ticking.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Jack Fenton & Maddie Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton & Sam Manson, Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley, Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson, Mr. Lancer & His students
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	1. Food for thought: part I

**Author's Note:**

> This is a reimagining of the Danny Phantom series, trying for a slightly more dramatic take on the story with an overarching narrative. I'll still be trying for that series-like feel, with a collection chapters together acting as a full episode.
> 
> A lot more focus will be going into the ghosts; who they were, how they died, their motivations, that kind of stuff. The main focus will still be on the trio, but it will be much more like a mystery novel with twists and turns rather than the straightforward action of the original series. Mostly because I'm not that good at writing action scenes.  
> Basically, the trio will be doing a lot more sneaking and running and book diving than in the original show.
> 
> By the way, if anyone would be interested I'd love if someone could beta read this stuff.

Sam Manson would not consider herself an ordinary girl. She didn't like the word.  
No, that wasn't the right way of putting it. It was more appropriate to say she positively _despised_ the word; and would take it as a personal insult if anyone called her so.  
This abhorrence towards normality had been a driving force in most of her life. Shaped who she was.  
It had done some damage, true. If she hadn’t been so determined on always dancing to her own tune, she’d probably have a better relationship her parents. If she had chosen a different lifestyle, she wouldn’t be labelled a freak by most of her classmates.  
Still, if she had the chance to do it all over, she wouldn’t change a thing.  
If she hadn’t stuck to her guns, she wouldn’t have gotten to look at herself the way she did now. She wouldn’t have discovered her love for the dark and weird; wouldn’t have recognized the nauseating way her parents and old friends was acting; wouldn’t have approached the weird kid in the jumpsuit everyone else had been laughing at back in second grade.  
Sam Manson wasn’t a normal person, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

At the moment however, she was fine doing something completely ordinary: massacring her friend Tucker Foley in an FPS-game while waiting for her other friend, Danny Fenton, to join them.  
 **T: goddamnit**  
 **T: how the hell do you keep getting me with that tripwire**  
 **S: you’re too predictable. you always go for the nexus.**  
 **T: well duh**  
 **T: thats where all the good items are**  
Sam smirked. Classic Tucker.  
She was just about to set up a new training mission for them, when her phone blared to life.  
Sam had to suppress the urge to silence her phone. If her friends ever found out her ringtone was Bleeding Green by the Murder-Puppets From Rosemary Street, she’d never hear the end of it.  
 **S: brb, my phone is ringing.**  
 **S: might be danny**  
 **T: cool**  
Sam got out of her chair, snatched the noisy device from where she had thrown it on her bed before dropping onto the soft mattress. She briefly glanced at the screen. Unknown caller, not Danny then.  
Curious, she tapped the accept button and held the phone up to her ear.  
“Hello?”  
It took a second for anyone to answer. There was a lot of noise on the other end of the line. People were shouting in frantic voices, and Sam thought she could hear some kind of machine humming in the background. Eventually the brittle voice of a young woman drowned out the rest of the noise.  
“Hello? Is this Sam? Sam Manson? It’s Jazz. I mean Jasmine. I mean... I’m Danny’s sister.”  
Sam frowned. Why on earth would Danny’s sister be calling her? They barely knew each other. Sure, they had met a couple of times before, in school or when Sam was visiting Danny’s house, but they never really talked to one another.  
Sam had always felt a little freaked out by the older girl. The red headed psychologist in training always wanted to talk about Sam’s feelings or her attitude. And to be honest, despite how much she tried to distance herself from her parents, it was undeniable that the oldest Fenton sibling had inherited their enthusiasm when it came to research.  
Jasmin’s parents, and by extension Danny’s, were scientists with speciality in para-biology who also ran a search and containment business by the side.  
In other words, they were ghost hunters. Or at least, that was the nice term people used. The less pleasant names numbered quite a few more. Nutjobs, lunatics, and frauds were some of the most common slurs to be thrown around, alongside the ever so popular “dangers to the community” label.  
Sam's teeth ground together just thinking about the number of times she had caught her own parents saying stuff like that. They always hid it in some thinly veiled innuendo, but it was obvious for anyone to see what they really meant. The nerve.  
They weren't the only ones though. It was easy to brush the ghost hunting couple off as a pair of crazy engineers who had watched ghostbusters a few times too many.  
But to do that would a gross lapse of judgement. Sam had seen Danny show off too many of their inventions to think otherwise. Strange machines that seemingly defied everything miss Johnson, their physics teacher, had told them was and wasn't possible.  
No, the Fentons were brilliant inventors and scientists. They were just a bit too overzealous when it came to their side job.  
That zealousness had left an impact on the family though.  
Danny had developed a persona of nonchalance and apathy when it came to the subject of his parents and tried to actively avoid them when out in public.  
Jasmine on the other hand, had slammed the brakes hard and gone on the offensive. It wasn’t unusual to hear the honour student in a one-sided argument with her parents about the poor psychological environment they were exposing their youngest son to. The arguments usually left no impact on the oblivious adults, but that hadn’t discouraged their daughter the least as she happily jumped into every argument with gusto.  
She didn’t sound like that now. Now she sounded distraught, confused, scared.  
“Can I help you?” Sam asked cautiously.  
“It’s Danny. He’s… There’s been an accident…”  
Sam felt her heart stop. What?  
“What?” Was it her voice sounding so small?  
“In the lab… He- oh god, he tripped… The- the system wasn’t fixed…”  
Sam felt like someone had knocked the air out of her. She got to her feet without noticing it.  
“I’ll be over in a second. Do you-”  
“NO!” The exclamation was so sudden, so desperate panicked, it made Sam stop dead in her tracks.  
“Please,” Jasmine begged, “you can’t come over.”  
“Why?” Sam asked frustrated, “What happened to him?”  
“He… The… I-I can’t tell you.”  
“What do you mean, you can’t tell me? You’re saying my best friend is hurt and I can’t-”  
“I’m sorry, Sam” Jasmine choked, “I’m so sorry.”  
“Don’t you dare-” Sam began. But Jasmine had already ended the call.  
Sam tapped the redial button with enough force to leave behind a crack from her nail. She put the phone back to her ear, pacing back and forth like a wild animal while the dialling tone slowly drew her nuts.  
**_“Hi, you’ve reached Jasmine Fenton’s voicemail. If you want to talk, please leave a name and number. If you want to talk with my parents, please don't call back.”  
_** Sam threw her phone with a frustrated scream. It hit the opposite wall and landed harmlessly on the floor. Like air from a balloon, Sam felt her anger leave her and she was overcome with some weird tiredness. Her legs felt weak and unresponsive. Her mind was a jumbled mess of thoughts drowning in one another.  
What had happened? Was Danny all right? Why wouldn’t they tell her what was wrong? Why hadn’t Danny called her? What if…  
Sam shook her head drowsily. If she went down that path, there was no telling where she'd end up.  
Trying to ignore the myriad of thoughts on her mind, she sat back down in her chair and turned to look at her computer. She had lost the mood to play.  
She was just about to turn of the computer, when it struck her that Tucker needed to know what was going on.  
**T: yo sam  
T: are you there?  
T: are you talking with danny?  
S: tucker, it was danny’s sister.  
S: danny has been in an accident.  
T: what  
T: no way  
T: what happened?  
**Sam tried typing out a response, but her screen was getting blurry. Had it broken?  
Something was bothering her eyes. She tried to rub it off, only to see a large black smudge on her hand as she pulled it away.  
Oh.  
Oh…  
Sam Manson hated being ordinary, but she was also a human being. And human beings, ordinary or not, goths or not, felt pain when those they cared about got hurt.  
Even goths cried.


	2. Food for thought: part II

Three weeks had passed since Sam got that dreadful phone call. Three weeks, and no sign of Danny.  
It wasn’t just Danny who had gone missing. Sam had tried to confront the older Fenton sibling as soon as she got back to Casper High, but the older girl had proven more elusive than an Italian Chupacabra. Sam had checked the cafeteria, all the girls’ restrooms, and the usual route back to Fenton’s works. She had even tried more than once to ‘accidentally’ burst in on lessons in the older student’s classrooms. Jasmine Fenton was nowhere to be found.  
“C’mon Sam. You can’t keep going like this” Tucker pleaded. They had just entered mr. Lancer’s classroom for the final lesson of the morning.  
“Watch me” Sam muttered.  
They sat down in their usual seats, the absence of Danny glaringly obvious by the empty seat next to them.  
“Look, I know you’re upset. Trust me, I want to know what’s going on just as much as you. But you’ve been going at this for too long. You need a break before you do something stupid.”  
Sam turned to give a scathing retort about Danny not getting a break, but at that moment mr. Lancer stepped through the door.  
“Alright class. No more chattering in the corners,” the bald teacher called.  
Sam closed her mouth. She looked Tucker in the eyes as if to tell him the discussion wasn’t over.  
Tucker replied with a glance of his own. They were definitely going to continue the discussion after class.

As always, time seemed to go slower in the presence of mr. Lancer. A skill which had made the middle-aged teacher the fear of every detention. The hour of listening crawled by at a snail's pace as the teacher droned on about the thematic use of fate in Macbeth. Really, it was a wonder Sam realised the lesson was about to end when she did.  
At the sound of the bell calling to lunch, mr. Lancer pulled out a stack of papers.  
“Now, before you all leave, I’ll be handing out next week's assignment” he said, “you’ll have to write an essay about a self-chosen story with focus on the subjects we have been discussing.”  
Seeing an opportunity, Sam raised her hand. A bubble of hope wrestled itself loose from the murky sludge of her emotional state and began to fly.  
“Yes, miss. Manson.”  
“Mr. Lancer, if you could just give me Danny’s copy of the assignment I’ll drop by after class to hand it to him.” There was no way the dr. Fentons wouldn’t let her in if she brought schoolwork. The two scientists practically worshipped academics.  
Mr. Lancer looked at her with a strange look in his eyes.  
“I’m sorry, miss. Manson, but mr. Fenton is no longer registered to our school”.  
Sam’s fragile bubble of hope burst with a small pop.  
“What?” she asked, though her voice was barely more than a whisper.  
“His parents called last Monday. They had both mr. Fenton and his sister pulled out of the school” mr. Lancer explained. His eyes flickered to Tucker, still with that strange look in them.  
Sam was left speechless. Danny? Pulled out of school? Mrs. and mr. Fenton’s decision? The words weren’t adding up. Like she was stuck with a bunch of verbs and no nouns to make a full sentence.  
She didn’t register she had left the classroom until she reached her locker, where a nasty and familiar voice pierced her thoughts.  
“Hey, Folio!”  
Dash Baxter, the star quarterback of Casper High had walked up to Tucker, a tight grip on the shorter boy’s shoulder in a show of dominance. From her spot a few feet away, Sam could see the drops of sweat forming on her friend’s brow.  
“Hey… Dash” Tucker said, a feeble smile wavering on his face, “what’s up? You wanna-”  
“Listen, geek” Dash cut him off, “I don’t have time for Lancer’s paper. So how about you do me a solid, huh?”  
“Leave him alone, Baxter” Sam growled. This dance was so old, and it hadn’t gotten any funnier with time.  
“Oooh, look at Samson” Dash sneered, a putrid grin on his face, “what, standing up for the geek cause he’s an endangered species? Or maybe you’re thinking he’ll date you out of pity now that your _boyfriend’s_ left you.”  
Let it be known that Sam wasn’t a fan of violence. On an intellectual level, she knew that nothing good could come out of simple-minded aggression. She knew Dash didn’t have the full picture, knew he was all talk and doing it because he had no other way of expressing himself. However, Sam was also a temperamental person. And in that moment, she couldn’t exactly see the benefits of logic and reason. It was blocked out by all the red.  
It is awfully difficult to live up to every standard.

Mr. Lancelot Lancer was broken out of his monotonous paperwork by a high-pitched scream. He leapt out of his chair and dashed out into the hallway.  
He was just about to round the corner when Dash Baxter came sprinting past him.  
The boy was a mess. His upper lip was swollen, his left eye was black, and blood was pouring out from the hand clutched around his nose. The left arm of his jacket had been ripped halfway off, and from the boxers sticking out through the rim of his pants, it looked like his assailant had tried to pay him back for every welly he’d ever given tenfold.  
“Dnith isn’d sjuppothed du habben ‘dil A’m married” the blonde quarterback cried as he scrambled past the startled teacher and into a nearby restroom.  
Dreading what he was going to find around the corner, mr. Lancer steeled himself and kept going.  
Sure enough, the sight that met him wasn’t pretty.   
Mr. Baxter’s assailant, miss. Manson, was standing in the hallway looking like an enraged goth cougar. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyeliner had gone a bit drippy, but she looked otherwise unharmed. What was more troubling was her red face, and the fist dripping with blood that definitely wasn’t hers.   
She wasn’t facing mr. Lancer. A large group of students had surrounded the lockers and the angry girl, whispering in hushed tones about the gruesome beat down they’d just witnessed. The young goth was glaring at them with such hostility, they ought to be running for the hills. But they just kept standing there completely unconcerned for their own health.   
Ah… The wonders of the teenage mind. So young, brainless and suicidal.   
The old teacher could clearly see the situation however, and he did not like it.  
With every passing second, the goth became more and more agitated. She looked like she was going to pounce at any second, and she was eyeing miss. Sanchez dangerously.   
Panicked, mr. Lancer pushed forward. He had to defuse the situation before his student did even more damage. The school couldn’t afford another lawsuit from mrs. Sanchez.  
“Fight Club, miss. Manson!” he exclaimed, “What in the Name of the Rose has gotten into you?”  
Like Moses in the book of Exodus, the sea of students parted to let the bald teacher pass. Sam turned around and looked him straight in the eyes, her expression still glowering.  
“Back to my classroom,” mr. Lancer ordered, wielding an authority in his voice with no roots in his mind, “pronto.”  
For a second Sam looked as if she was going to defy him. Then, much to his relief, she stormed past him and out of sight.  
With the imminent danger averted, mr. Lancer turned to the rest of the students.  
“Mr. Ishiyama, mr. Baxter has locked himself inside the girls’ restroom. Please take him to the nurses office.” Mr. Lancer had not liked the way Dash’s left foot had been limping. Plus, if something happened to Ms. Tetslaff’s quarterback, there would be hell to pay.  
Kwan didn’t waste any time on complaining or confusion. As soon as mr. Lancer had finished his request; the boy took off down the hallway in search of his friend.  
“The rest of you. Move along.”  
As the students began to disperse around him, mr. Lancer’s attention was caught by Tucker.  
“Please sir,” the boy said, “don’t be too hard on her. She’s been having a rough time, lately. Dash goaded her. She was only trying to help me.”  
“Mr. Foley, I am perfectly aware of miss. Manson’s situation” mr. Lancer replied, “please rest assured that I’m taking all circumstances into consideration. Now then, if you’ll excuse me, you should head towards the cafeteria.”  
Partially eased, Tucker gave his teacher a grateful smile before he too ran off.  
With the situation finally solved, mr. Lancer allowed himself a brief moment of weakness and let out a heavy sigh.  
He had been watching the warning signs for a while now. Lately miss. Manson had become hostile, snappy. her schoolwork had taken a hit, and she spent most of her time skulking around in the breaks. Combine that with mr. Foley’s change in behaviour and how the two friends had reacted to the news of mr. Fentons withdrawal from the school, and it wasn’t too difficult to see what was going on.  
Mr. Lancer hadn’t approved of mrs. and mr. Fenton’s decision to pull out their children. Both Jasmine and Daniel were brilliant students who clearly didn’t need the extra help they could get from another high school, or even home-schooling. What they _did_ need was an environment to interact with their friends and other people in their own age group.  
Mr. Lancer didn’t approve the decision, nor could he understand it. It was obvious that mr. Fenton’s long absence was the driving force, but he had no idea _why_ his young student had been absent for so long. It couldn’t be bullying. He knew mr. Fenton had been a more prominent victim of the football team’s bullying, but the boy had always shown a remarkable resilience when it came to what was thrown after him, and mr. Lancer was good at picking out those students who was putting on a brave facade. Daniel wasn’t one of them.  
In his darker moments, a nagging voice kept whispering in the back of mr. Lancer’s head. What if it wasn’t something about the _school?_ What if it was something going on with the Fentons? What if something had happened to his young pupil?  
Mr. Lancer was always quick to drown out those thoughts. He knew the Fentons. They were good parents, if a bit distracted now and then, and they wanted what was best for their children.  
Besides, he reasoned as he passed the girls’ restroom and an exasperated Kwan, mr. Fenton’s situation was out of his control at the moment. Right now, he had to deal with a young girl waiting in his classroom. A young girl who probably felt like she was losing her best friend.  
It wasn’t the first time mr. Lancer had to deal with students feeling loss. Friends moving school, sweethearts moving to a new city, siblings graduating. There were a lot of reasons some students might feel left behind by those they cared about.  
Mr. Lancer was too young to remember the last time Casper High had to deal with a loss of life; but even so he had promised himself to treat every instance with the same seriousness. Promised to handle every student just as delicately. It didn’t matter to the students why they were hurting, after all.  
It was going to be tricky though. Miss. Manson had an independent streak a mile long. There was no doubt to mr. Lancer that she would fight every bit of help he would offer her. He had honestly hoped she would be able to sort out her emotions herself, which was why he had refrained from intervening. Now, he couldn’t afford that leniency anymore.  
“C’mon buddy, don’t be like that. You need to see the nurse. We’ve got training today.”  
“Thorgeb id. A’m gnod leathing. Oh god, ma nothe.”

By the time mr. Lancer reached his classroom; Sam had had plenty of time to mellow out. Not that it had helped much. She was sitting at a front row desk, absentmindedly sketching in a notepad.  
She had no doubt what her homeroom teacher was going to tell her. ‘What you did was wrong. What would your parents think? I know you can do better. Blah, blah, blah.’  
She was not going to apologize to Dash. The jerk jock had been having it coming since before high school. He was a Bulli with a capital B and a typo. The worst kind.  
Still, it wasn’t like she was going tell mr. Lancer that. She’d pretend to agree with whatever her teacher told, solemnly swear on Beelzebub to do better, and then take whatever punishment she was given.  
At least that was what planned to do, if mr. Lancer hadn’t beaten her to the punch.  
“Right, miss. Manson,” mr. Lancer said as he took his seat behind his desk, “Before we begin the usual dance where you pretend to be sorry and I pretend to believe you, I want to straighten things out and hear your account of what happened.”  
Momentarily taken off beat, Sam tried to play it off.  
“Nothing much to tell. Dash bothered Tucker. I told him to back off. He didn’t. I gave him a black eye.”  
“Right…” mr. Lancer said with a raised eyebrow, “And when mr. Foley says mr. Baxter was goading you, that was merely his imagination.”  
Sam shrugged. “Dash might have said a few things.”  
“About what?”  
Sam remained silent.  
Mr. Lancer decided to push his luck.  
“Did any of those remarks involve the absence of mr. Fenton?”  
Sam flinched. Bingo.  
With a sigh, mr. Lancer got up and moved around the desk so as not to have barrier between him and Sam. Neither in a physical nor an emotional sense.  
“Look, Sam. You’re not the first student to deal with these emotions.”  
Sam scowled, and mr. Lancer mentally cursed himself. Bad move, _bad move_.  
“I’m not trying to invalidate how you feel,” he added hastily, “I’m merely trying to tell you that we have experience with this in this school, and we want to help you.”  
He raised a hand as he stepped closer to her, requesting permission to clap her shoulder, to offer her a physical support. When she didn’t respond, he lowered it again.  
Sam gave him a scrutinizing look, searching for something. When she didn’t find it, her eyes flickered lowered back to her sketches.  
“I don’t know what the situation with mr. Fenton is,” mr. Lancer admitted, his voice weary “I wish I knew something to ease your mind. Frankenstein, I wish I knew something to ease _my_ mind. But I don’t.”  
The admission caught Sam’s attention, and her eyes locked with mr. Lancer’s again. They still had that strange look. The same he had given her earlier. The same look she sometimes caught in the eyes of her parents.  
“I want to help you, miss. Manson,” he repeated, “I really do. But I need your help to do it.”  
Sam said nothing. She rummaged through her mind searching for a response. In the end, she settled for polite trivializing.  
“Thanks, mr. Lancer, but I’m fine. I’ve just had a lot on my plate lately. I just need a bit of time to sort everything out.”  
Mr. Lancer nodded. Sometimes, he wished he could just grab his students by their shoulders and shout at them to take up his offer of help, but he knew better. It was difficult for most teenagers to admit it when they needed help. The process took time. Better to leave the topic for now.  
Contemplating his next course of actions, he sat back down on the edge of his desk.  
“Well I’m glad you’re recognizing the situation, miss. Manson. However, there’s still the matter of your reprimand. We can’t have people think I’m letting you off easy after attacking mr. Baxter.”  
He scratched his bearded chin thoughtfully. What would be a proper reprimand for the situation? Something that could keep his young student out of trouble as well as allowing him to keep an eye on her.  
“How about this?” he finally suggested, “You’ll be having detention with me during lunch for the next two weeks, starting now.”   
Hopefully he’d be able to coax her into seeking help in that amount of time.  
Sam nodded. Those weren’t bad terms all things considered.   
With a tired smile, mr. Lancer went back to sit behind his desk.  
A comfortable silence fell over the room, as mr. Lancer graded papers and Sam doodled in her notebook.

After a few minutes, mr. Lancer got up and headed towards the door. He grabbed the handle and was just about to leave the room, when a thought struck him.  
“You haven’t brought a lunch with you today, have you miss. Manson?” he asked.  
He looked back at Sam, who shook her head in confirmation. She had planned to get something from the cafeteria.  
“I was just about to head to the cafeteria to get something for myself. Should I bring something along for you?” he asked.  
“Yes please.” Sam answered.  
“The vegetarian dish, right?”  
“Right. Thanks, mr. Lancer.”  
“Don’t mention it,” mr. Lancer replied, delighted to see the fleeting smile on his student. Small steps, but steps nonetheless.  
He stepped out into the empty hallway, closing the door to the classroom behind him, and made his way towards the cafeteria.  
Sam looked after him for a second, then went back to her sketches. Her mind much more at ease than she had expected.  
Maybe teachers weren’t so bad after all.


End file.
